


Safety First

by Sholio



Category: White Collar
Genre: Christmas, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2011-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The package was sitting on Diana's desk when she walked through the glass doors of the White Collar unit. For <a href="http://wc-women-fest.livejournal.com/2792.html?thread=67304#t67304">this prompt</a> at WC Womenfest: <i>Diana, Christmas; the tag reads, From Mozzie.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety First

The package was sitting on Diana's desk when she walked through the glass doors of the White Collar unit.

Diana stopped and looked around. Instinctively she reached under her jacket for her gun. Almost no one was in yet, not even the boss. The only people in evidence were Summers, who had clearly come in early to finish up the paperwork from the fraud case she'd wrapped up yesterday, and Blake, who hadn't yet gotten past his probie over-achiever tendencies.

"Did you see who left this?" Diana asked.

Blake glanced up from his computer and blinked at her. "What?"

"Never mind." Should she call the bomb squad? Well, she could at least do some reconnaissance before she bothered them. The package, about the size of a shoebox, was wrapped in newspaper and tied up with brown twine, like an old-time package in a movie. This gave Diana her first glimmering of suspicion, which erupted into full-fledged paranoia when she saw the typewritten tag hanging from the string wrapping.

FROM MOZZIE.

Oh ... dear. Maybe she _should_ call the bomb squad. She picked up a pencil off her desk and poked the box, gently at first, then harder. When it didn't make any suspicious sounds, she pulled two Kleenex from the box on her desk and used them to pick it up and tip it, _very_ carefully. Still no noise. It was very light.

"What are you doing?"

Diana jumped, fumbled the package and caught it just in time. "Boss," she said, "don't sneak up on people."

Peter just grinned at her. He had a cup of coffee in hand, and snowflakes on the shoulders of his dark wool coat. Caffrey was, thankfully, not with him.

"For your information," Diana continued loftily, "it's a Christmas present," and she shoved it out of sight under her desk.

Throughout the day she kept noticing Peter casting the odd curious glance at her desk, which would cause Neal to give _Peter_ an odd look. If Caffrey was involved, she never managed to catch him doing anything suspicious. Evening came, and the members of the White Collar unit, one by one, drifted off for their long weekend. Diana fielded cheerful Christmas wishes from her co-workers, and found an opportunity to quietly pass Marissa in Accounting a box of chocolates, purchased as a thank-you for Marissa's help on a book-cooking case back in November. Clinton had left early; he was flying down to Virginia to spend Christmas with his grandparents.

Diana carefully slipped the mystery box out from under her desk and tucked it beneath her coat. All the stealth in the world, however, could not disguise the fact that she was hiding a box under her coat, and she noticed both Peter and Neal watching her with identical cat vs. canary expressions. "Merry Christmas," she told them, and ducked out the door before they could ask any awkward questions.

She didn't realize until she was in the elevator that apparently she'd decided to take it home with her. Well, damn. Maybe Christie would think it was funny.

***

The newspaper-wrapped gift sat awkwardly under their tree among the bright packages that had arrived in a large box from Christie's relatives, like an ugly duckling in a pond full of cute little yellow chicks.

Diana's parents had sent the usual bottle of Dom Perignon and a gift certificate for an all-expenses-paid weekend for two at a Swiss chalet owned by some of their friends. The card had said DEAR DIANA; they never sent Christie anything, or asked after her specifically. On the other hand, the gift vacation at least implied that Diana might have someone to spend it with, which was an improvement over last year's all-expenses-paid shopping spree to a boutique in which Diana would not be caught dead. At least Christie and her sister had enjoyed it.

 _Denial,_ Diana thought; _it's not just a river in Egypt._

Christie, meanwhile, had parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters who all lived in the same small Maryland town, and there were half a dozen packages under the tree addressed to DIANA or DI. The tree itself was a small artificial one, but it had been decorated beyond recognition with their usual combination of storebought ornaments and the ones from Christie's childhood -- Christie and her five brothers and sisters had all received a handmade ornament each year from their grandparents, and now the little wooden sleighs and crocheted snowflakes dangled among glittering glass balls and other ornate objects from expensive Fifth Avenue stores.

There were also a few rather ... _eclectic_ ornaments in the mix. In Diana's first year at the White Collar unit, Peter had given her a pair of little toy six-shooters with red ribbon looped around them. Beside them hung a brightly painted baked-dough angel, from last year when Elizabeth had made ornaments for all of her husband's co-workers.

Diana and Christie sprawled in front of the tree on the carpet, Christie with a glass of white wine, Diana with a bottle of her favorite microbrew. Christmas Eve. One present. It was one of the few things their childhoods had had in common, and so they stuck to the tradition as adults.

"Come on," Christie said, "you know you want to."

"No!" Diana reached at random for an odd cylindrical package and shook it. "I want to know what I'm getting from --" She peeked at the tag. "Your brother Robert."

"Tough. I want to know what your odd little paranoid friend is giving you."

"He is not my friend," Diana said with great dignity, then wondered if that was perhaps a little harsh. "He's ... an ally. Sometimes. Which is not to say that he shouldn't be in prison."

"Have you considered writing letters of recommendation?" Christie giggled and rolled over and kissed Diana's nose. "Come on. Pleasepleaseplease."

"That's not cute, you know. Grown women shouldn't pout." But it _was_ cute. Damn it. "Oh, fine," she said. "But you have to realize that it could be anything. I mean, literally _anything._ You thought Caffrey's illegal cheese was worrisome? Wait until you see what Mozzie considers a suitable Christmas gift. It could be unexploded Cold War ordnance. Or a box of live weasels. In fact, you probably ought to be in the kitchen. Maybe in another building."

Christie set her glass of wine on the carpet, crossed her hands under her chin and looked interested.

"It's your funeral," Diana said. "Perhaps both of ours. Or, as the case may be, the whole block."

She sat up and carefully, _very_ carefully, undid the string, then began unwrapping the paper. She couldn't help noticing as she did so that the newspaper's text was in Cyrillic.

The shoebox-sized object turned out to be ... a shoebox.

"Wow," Christie said, "he got you a pair of Keds. I'm so jealous."

"Oh hush."

She lifted off the box lid with exquisite care, listening for suspicious clicks. Nothing. Inside were some crumpled-up newspapers. Diana pulled them out, and underneath found ... more newspapers. And more. Finally, at the bottom of the shoebox, she found a sealed, opaque plastic envelope. After staring at it for a moment, she tore it open and shook out an index card with two lines of typewritten text. The first line said IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. The second ...

"Well?" Christie said impatiently.

Diana flipped it over and held it out so that Christie could see. "It's an address."

"Yes. I see that. 'In case of emergency.' What do you think it is?" Christie grinned, playing along with the spirit of the game. "A tank, maybe?"

"No," Diana said thoughtfully, turning the card and looking at it, carefully committing the address to memory. "I think it's a bolt hole."

"A which?"

"Someplace to go in case of emergency." She recalled Peter's story of his adventure in Tuesday. It was the sort of thing you never realized you would ever need until you did. And then, you needed it _fast._ "This," she said thoughtfully, "is actually a really good pres -- ow!"

The card had burst into flames in her hand. Diana dropped it, and as Christie wailed, "The carpet!" Diana grabbed her beer and dumped it over the flames.

The two of them stared at the sooty smudge on the carpet.

"Don't worry," Diana said. "I memorized it."

"I bet this comes out of our security deposit," Christie moaned.

Change-of-subject time. Diana cleared her throat, reached out and covered Christie's eyes with her hands, taking the opportunity to steal a quick kiss. "Okay. Your turn to pick."

"Your friend set our carpet on fire."

"Come on, pick a gift!"

Later, after Christie was happily ensconced on the computer with her new video game -- she was addicted to first-person-shooter games, and her brothers knew it -- Diana sat in front of the window with a freshly opened beer and gazed out at the city lights. She rehearsed the address in her head until she was sure that she had it down.

Christie didn't understand. But Diana knew that Mozzie had known she would: they occupied the same world, after all, even if they were on different sides of it. She knew the value of a safe place. And Mozzie, in his own inimitable and annoying way, had given her one. She wasn't quite sure how to repay him, but she figured she'd better start thinking now for next Christmas.

He was definitely paying for the carpet, though.


End file.
